Get into position for social dancing

English Dance and Song Winter 2021

This article appears in English Dance and Song, the magazine of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The world’s oldest magazine for folk music and dance, EDS was first published in 1936 and is essential reading for anyone with a passion for folk arts. 

In the last edition of EDS, Lisa Heywood shared her thoughts around gender-free ceilidh calling. Her arguments about inclusivity were enthusiastically received, but several readers wondered if positional calling works for more complex dances. So, in this article, Louise Siddons explains how she uses positional calling for Playford and contra dances – and that positional calling has the potential to make dancing more fun for everyone.

Why do we dance? Back in 2016, I invited dancers to finish the sentence, “I am for dancing that…”, with the example, “I am for dancing that celebrates both tradition and innovation”.

While we each had individual motivations for dancing, we found that the values underpinning them were widely shared. Two years later, at the Camden English Folk Dance Club, I was reminded of those shared values. Two women, intending to dance together, were asked to separate and partner with two men. The women, disappointed, asked me what I could do as a caller to encourage a cultural shift that would allow them to dance together in peace.

Initiating a group conversation, I discovered that the men were equally eager to dance with their friends – regardless of gender. They knew, however, that at some point the caller would use a role term (generally ‘ladies’), and they were uncomfortable being called something they were not. Compounding that reluctance was their awareness that the extra cognitive load of responding to the ‘wrong’ role term made them less skilled dancers. While sexism and homophobia informed some of their specific responses, on principle they were very happy to dance together. Each person in our conversation behaved differently, but underneath they all shared similar values.

By 2018, I had been gender-free calling at the request of dancers and organisers for several years, most often using alternative role terms like ‘larks’ and ‘robins’. But the Camden conversation affirmed my growing conviction that any role-based language risks disregarding dancers’ preferences and values. Many dance instructions make no use of gender-based roles, so why can’t all choreography be taught in this manner? From that point on, positional calling – the phrase I adopted to describe calling that eschews binary/historically-gendered role terms in favour of relational language and pattern-based teaching – became my preference.

Not only did gender-free calling solve our immediate problem in Camden; the positional teaching also helped dancers learn more effectively and dance better.

I primarily call Playford and contra and I’m usually hired by organisers who don’t share any expectations regarding my calling style. Since 2018, I’ve called positionally at a wide variety of events. Over the past few years, I’ve led workshops on positional calling ranging from practical skills building to conceptual and theoretical conversations about its benefits and challenges. By now, positional calling is a familiar concept – indeed, for many, it’s simply a new term for a strategy they use intuitively.

Three positionally-called dances

Strong walkthroughs are vital; examples are abbreviated due to space limits. 

Unlike alternative role terms, which are simply substitutes for gendered ones, positional calling requires looking at choreography in new ways. Callers must, as always, accommodate dancers.

For example, a caller who can refer to first and second corners has solved three quarters of their positional challenges, but dancers who only attend American-style
contras likely have no idea who the ‘first corners’ are. In my first example, the dance starts with the first corners making a long wavy line. But what if you don’t want to say that?

Snake Dreams

Mark Langner, 2002. Duple minor contra

Take hands four and circle right one place; start the walkthrough from B1. Use the flow from the courtesy
turn to identify those who make the first wave. Do a walkthrough and a half (to end); then say “the dance
begins here; with the music, make long waves”.

A1 1-8 Dance in and balance the wave; partners in and balance that wave (keep left hands and…).

A2 1-8 Allemande left three quarters; (new) neighbour balance, box the gnat; swing through (neighbour allemande right halfway, two in the middle left halfway).

B1 1-8 Partner balance and swing (an obvious anchor or recovery point).

B2 1-8 Right and left through across (courtesy turn; if you’re moving forward…); right-hand chain (and you’re still moving forward – use that momentum. Dance into the middle; make a wave).

One frequent concern is that positional calling shrinks our repertoire. How, for example, can one call a figure to just one line of the longways set without using a gendered role term? There are obvious solutions like “the line facing the kitchen”, but they don’t satisfy everyone. I see nothing wrong with references to the room, but here’s a solution that works without them. Remember also that sometimes a demonstration is best.

The Physical Snob

c. 1800, reconstructed by Bernard Bentley, Fallibroome Collection, volume 1

Three couple longways set The ones will lead their line in the first figure individually. Second corner leads first (gesture to first line); if you’re in that line, it’s your responsibility to remember to go first when you’re at the top. First line, take hands:

A1 1-8 First line, dance up and around your partners, to place.

A2 1-8 Second line, take hands and dance up and around your partners.

B1&2 1-16 Ones lead a poussette down and back, starting clockwise at the top (halfway; anticlockwise at the bottom all the way; clockwise at the top halfway).

C1 1-8 Ones cross and go below one place; cross again and go below.

C2 1-8 Ones lead all the way up and cast to the bottom.

Over time, I’ve become a voracious collector of non-binary dances: three-facing-three formations, or five dancers all working together. Along the way, I’ve discovered dances where thinking in terms of partners impeded my understanding of the dance; from a positional perspective, it became clear there were more effective ways of describing them. In her notes for Sussex Martlets, Wendy Crouch described three couples in a triangle (based on the mythical birds on the Sussex coat of arms). But she made a note: “The dance is also suitable for unequal male/female ratios”, acknowledging its non-binary feel. I therefore describe the dancers in two sets of three (points and sides, as in Hilary Herbert’s dance, The Altazamuth Stone), rather than three sets of two.

Sussex Martlets

Wendy Crouch, 1989
Six dancers in a triangle formation

Before the walkthrough, identify dancers at the points and sides. The dance begins with everyone facing up.

A1 1-8 Dance up a double, and set; fall back a double, and set.

A2 1-8 Along the bottom, reel of three, while at the top, four changes (no hands; top dancer leads the figure by facing down and passing right shoulder on the right diagonal. They then turn left to pass left shoulder across; then up to change by the right. They are now home; the other two dancers pass left shoulder with each other so all are home).

B1 1-8 Points face anticlockwise: slip out and back while sides right-hand star once around; sides (already facing clockwise) slip out and back while the points left-hand star once around.

B2 1-8 Points, to the right, do-si-do (with a side); then to the left, do-si-do.

Crouch noted that, “On the third time the second do-si-do may be replaced by a forward to new place and turn single in these positions and the whole dance repeated in three more directions with [dancers] in reverse roles”. Calling positionally, there is no need to change calls in this new configuration.

Photo by Coleton Gambill.

For more about positional calling, visit Louise’s website louisesiddons.com